


Tell Me Something

by eternaleponine



Series: Ghosts That We Knew [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Deleted Scene, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a "deleted scene" which shows the conversation from the end of Chapter 53 of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/531381/chapters/942536">Ghosts That We Knew</a> from Natasha's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me Something

It had been a long day. One of the longest of her life, and she had quite a collection to compare it to. She'd endured hours of questions, been forced to reopen wounds and expose the rawest parts of her insides to a bunch of strangers who held her fate in their hands even though she wasn't the one on trial, but she didn't care because now it was out there, it couldn't be taken back, and that meant there was no reason to keep her completely cut off from the outside world anymore. 

She knew they wouldn't let her out of the hotel; there was a chance she would be called back to the stand tomorrow, and she wasn't getting out until this was all over and done with. She didn't like it, but she accepted it. But at least she could have her phone. At least she could call Clint.

Except her guards didn't agree, and it didn't matter what she said to them to try and convince them. They weren't budging. They had their orders. She tried to appeal to Fury, but he just said that it would be over soon, and they would see about getting her another pass on the weekend if it was still going on then.

"I don't want _pass_ ," Natasha snapped. "I want to have a life again!"

"I know, Natasha. I understand how frustrating this must be for you," he said.

She snorted. "You understand nothing. You are not locked up. I am prisoner. All I want is phone. All I want is to make one call. It does not have to be my phone. I don't care. Just one call."

"I'm sorry," he said. "It'll be over soon."

"You sound like broken record," she said. She got up and opened her hotel room door, pointing out into the hall, where her security detail waited. "Get out."

He left.

She put in a DVD to watch (they at least allowed her that much), turning on the subtitles without thinking about it, her eyes blurring so that she couldn't read them when she realized what she'd done. She ate the food that was brought to her because not doing so didn't punish anyone but herself. She even tried to sleep, but it wouldn't come.

Sometime after midnight she heard voices outside the door. Her heart lurched, and she felt cold all over. She crept to the door, pressing her ear against it to try and pick out who it was and what they were saying.

"You know the rules, Mr. Fury. She's not allowed—"

"I can assure you that the person on the phone has absolutely no interest in intimidating her getting her to change her story. He wants all of this to be over just as much as she does. It's not going to damage the case to allow her one phone call," Mr. Fury said. 

"I'm sorry, but—"

"You've taken everything away from her, and I've let you. I even tried to understand. But she's still a kid, and cutting her off from everything that she cares about – friends, family – is just as damaging, if not more so, than any threats anyone might find a way to level at her."

"We've allowed you to be here," the guard replied. "How have we taken away her family?"

"I've been her foster father for a few months. We barely know each other, and she has only established a very basic level of comfort with me. Her family – her _real_ family – is the young man on the phone right now who has been with her from the beginning and without whom she probably wouldn't be here right now. So I think it's going to be in everyone's best interest if you let her take this one call."

Natasha wanted to open the door, reach out and tear the phone from Mr. Fury's hands, but before she had a chance there was a light tap on the door. "Natasha?"

She fumbled with the lock (when had her hands started shaking? had they ever stopped after she'd taken the stand?) and peered out. Mr. Fury held out the phone to her. "Don't talk too long," he said. "You need to sleep."

"Yes sir," she said, and closed the door again, pressing the phone to her ear. "Clint?"

"'Tasha." She heard him sigh. "Tell me something."

Those words. She knew those words, those were _her_ words in the worst moments and what was wrong? She made her way back to her bed, sitting down on the edge and hunching over. "Is good to hear your voice," she said. "That is something."

"It's good to hear your voice too," he said. "Tell me something else."

But she couldn't say anything. Her throat ached and it was hard to swallow, hard even to breathe, and it took a minute to work through it, and to think of something to say. He'd always seemed to have some story to tell, some little anecdote of his life before her that he could offer her to help her escape the horror of her life without him. 

What did she have to give him in return? He'd never asked for anything, and now when it seemed like he needed her to be able to give back a little bit of what he'd given her for all these months, she had nothing. And how long would it be before he realized that? 

When all of this was over, when there were no more fires to put out, when it was just him and her and what passed for a normal life... would he still want her? She hated to think it, but was he only with her now because he felt some sense of obligation to get her through this, and when the crisis had passed, he would lose interest? 

When Natalia was laid to rest for good, would Natasha be enough?

 _Say something,_ she told herself. _Your life hasn't been only misery. Tell him something good._ But still it took a few moments to remember, and another few to get her voice under control.

"Once when I live in orphanage in Russia, we find a dog – not a puppy but not all the way grown, I think – and we sneak him in. He stinks and he has fleas, but we think he will be our pet. Somehow we will hide him and no one will find out. We even manage it for a few days, but then they notice we are stealing food to feed him and one of the girls tells because she does not want to be punished."

"Did you get punished?" he asked.

"Not really," Natasha said. "We live in orphanage. There is not much they can take from us when we have little to begin with. They just take dog away. I don't know what they do with it. I hope they just set it free back out in street."

"What else..." Clint started to ask, but stopped himself, and maybe he realized what the alternative would be and didn't want to think about it. "Do you like dogs?"

She'd never been exposed to them much, but she was opposed to them as a concept. "I like them well enough."

"Maybe we'll get a dog."

She frowned, not sure what he meant. How would they get a dog? And where would they keep it? "The Sullivans, they will love that." 

"Not now. Later. When we have our own place."

Oh. Her chest felt tight, and she rubbed at her eyes, trying to hold back tears. At least her voice held steady this time, even if the words came out a little flat. It wasn't how she meant for them to sound, but she couldn't let herself believe that he was saying what he seemed to be saying. "Oh yes? You are already planning this?" 

A pause, and then, "Sorry. I didn't—"

"Don't be," she said, more sharply than she meant, but she didn't want him to be sorry. She wanted him to mean it. She wanted impossible promises of an unlikely future, because she needed something to hold on to. "No sorry. Tell me."

But he said nothing, and when she listened, she could hear his breathing, ragged gasps in and out, and again she wanted to know what had happened, who or what had hurt him, and how could take it away? But she couldn't ask; he never had, and it was one of the things that had made her love him.

 _Come on, Natasha,_ she told herself. _He's given you so much, and now he needs you._

"Is okay," she said when the silence stretched too long. "Is okay, Clint. I tell you."

She took a breath, let it out slowly, and dreamed out loud for both of them. "We do not need big house," she told him. "But it will have yard, or park nearby, for dog. Siberian husky, maybe, or borzoi. Because Russian dog is best dog. I think we will paint bedroom purple, very light purple that almost is gray, like color of dove. You like purple, _da_? Is peaceful color. We will have big TV so when we watch movies subtitles are not so small to read, and a big couch to lay on. I will do cooking because you are bad at it, and you will do laundry because I hate it."

She kept talking, painting them a life neither of them had ever thought to dream of, changing her mind and painting over parts of it to fill them in again. He didn't say anything but it was only because he was listening, and she hoped that it helped. Finally she stopped to listen, and his breathing had slowed down, evened out. "I think you are asleep now," she told him, "so I will hang up. But I will talk to you soon, okay?" No answer. "Good night," she told him. _I love you._

She had to get up to return the phone to Mr. Fury. She checked her face in the mirror to make sure it didn't show too much that she'd been crying. She opened the door again and handed it to him. "Thank you," she said softly.

"Try to sleep," he replied. 

She nodded and closed the door again, returning to her bed. She curled around her pillow, letting herself imagine it was him, pressing her face to what would (should) have been his shoulder, and silently soaked it with tears.


End file.
